Once-dry funds back, so pool in plans

Illustration provided An architectural rendering shows the plans for a new community pool in Beardstown. Construction was put on hold after a state budget impasse put a $2.5 million grant on hold.

Illustration provided An architectural rendering shows the plans for a new community pool in Beardstown. Construction was put on hold after a state budget impasse put a $2.5 million grant on hold.

Image
1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Illustration provided An architectural rendering shows the plans for a new community pool in Beardstown. Construction was put on hold after a state budget impasse put a $2.5 million grant on hold.

Illustration provided An architectural rendering shows the plans for a new community pool in Beardstown. Construction was put on hold after a state budget impasse put a $2.5 million grant on hold.

Once-dry funds back, so pool in plans

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

BEARDSTOWN — Work on a new community pool soon will start again now that the city’s grant funds have been released from the state after more than a year.

The city was awarded a grant under former Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration for construction of a city pool. Work started quickly on the project, polling schools and the public in regard to what they might want.

Using the results of the polls and with ideas from the city committees, Springfield-based Graham and Hyde Architects put together a design.

But in 2015 the state’s funding was frozen during a budget impasse and it, as well as many other construction projects statewide, were put on hold.

“All of these park grants, there were several that were already going when we got ours in October of 2014. All of them were frozen,” Park Director Jason Brockschmidt said. “They’ve haggled over the money since 2015 and as part of the stop-gap budget — $50 million of the … grant money was released.”

The city’s $2.5 million grant, with $270,000 additional money raised by the city as part of a required match, has now been given to the city and design work is being resumed for the bath-house building.

“The architect is picking right up where they left off,” Brockschmidt said. “He’s going to work on a pool house design and then that has to go to the Department of Public Health so they can approve it and at that point we can send it out to bid.”

A glance at the design shows numerous features, such as a vortex pool, a basketball hoop, a family slide, a large spray ground, a climbing wall and a zip-line. If the cost of the project has increased from its original $2.9 million mark, some of the features may have to be omitted to cover the difference.

Because of the delay in funding, the city missed its original deadline to have the pool open in June. Now city officials are hoping it will be completed in June 2018.

Nick Draper can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1223, or on Twitter @nick_draper.